


Another You, Another Me

by androgynousfeline



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers Endgame canon compliant-ish, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Endgame Fix-It, M/M, Peggy Carter is not a prize, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, mentions of Nat, mentions of Tony - Freeform, oldman!Steve, past!Bucky, past!Peggy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21912520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgynousfeline/pseuds/androgynousfeline
Summary: Steve messes up his last jump and winds up a bit too far back after he returns the stone. It gives him a chance to get a good dressing down by two people who remind him where he ought to be. Endgame Fix-It because I had _thoughts_
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 12
Kudos: 102





	Another You, Another Me

**Author's Note:**

> Well this is my word vomit Endgame Fix-it. I'll throw it on the pile with the others and finally allow myself to finish grieving about the end of that movie. Un-Beta'd so all mistakes are mine and mine alone. Thoughts always welcome!

He had finished it. The last stone returned, and it had been the hardest. Steve hadn’t expected to meet the Red Skull dressed up like the grim reaper. When his old enemy informed him that returning the Soul stone wouldn’t bring Natasha back, Steve had lashed out, throwing himself at the other being. But he met nothing but air, Red Skull was merely an apparition, a soul trapped here to guard the stone. He landed on his hands and knees, breath heaving. 

“Nothing you do can change what has happened, Captain.”

Steve fisted his hands as he slowly rose to his feet. 

“You forget, Schmidt, that I don’t really take no for an answer in cases like these.” He glared the the red visage. 

“Alas, Steven Rogers, son of Sarah and Joseph, there is no other way.” He was tired, so, so tired. He could feel his age in every bone, every muscle; in the way it felt like he should just burst out of his skin. He knew it had been a long shot, getting Nat back. But he had hoped, had wanted. Then again, what exactly had his hopes and dreams wrought before? He reached into his pouch and drew out the Soul stone. It seemed so innocuous, felt like nothing in his hand. He curled his hand around it, looking again at the Red Skull. 

“Fuck you. Fuck all of this. And fuck these stones.” He snarled and threw the stone as hard as he could through the apparition before him. 

“Her soul will be at rest, Captain. Take some solace in that.” Red Skull intoned, sounding almost wistful. 

“Fuck off.” Steve growled, turning his back to the whole thing, blinking several times to see clearly. He knew what he had to do now, knew what coordinates to enter, but the guilt of Nat’s passing still hung on his shoulders, heavy and cold. It was never supposed to be like this. Not her, not Tony, not Thanos, again. Seeing Schmidt just reminded Steve of every step down the journey that wound up with him here. He blindly punched in the numbers on his wrist, activating the suit and sending himself hopefully on his last leap through the Quantum Realm. 

  
  


He popped into existence in darkness, his feet thumping down on what felt like stones. He could hear people walking and talking quietly so he quickly folded the suit back up into the wrist mount. He had purposefully dressed in clothes that wouldn’t look out of place in 1949, except he had thought he would wind up in DC. Instead he was definitely in the alleyway of a city, it smelled musty and familiar. He concentrated on the voices from passersby. _British….and American?_ He glanced out onto the street and had to do a double take. Walking around were men in uniform, WACs...what the hell? He glanced down at his wrist. Shit.

He must’ve transposed his numbers, instead of winding up in 1949 he’d gone to 1944. Damnit. He had enough Pym Particles to make the jump, properly this time, and then some. Bruce wanted to make sure Steve wasn’t in any danger of not coming back. He started to reach his wrist up to correct his course when a door opened behind him and someone stumbled out. Without thinking Steve dropped his wrist and turned to face the probable drunk. He couldn’t have any witnesses. He just hoped that in the dark he could just blend in the time period. 

Unfortunately, he turned around to face Bucky Barnes. His uniform tastefully dishevelled (against regulation, obviously, but Bucky had cared less and less about his dress blues the longer the war had gone on).

“Steve?” Bucky looked at him inquisitively, having stopped in his swaying stroll. Steve mind flashed back to his first time here. Everyone except Steve had gotten drunk and then he and Howard had left to futz with something in his lab. 

“Hey, Buck. Lookin pretty sloppy.” God, it hurt to see him like this. He looked so young; was so young. There was still an unsettling darkness in his gaze, but he wasn’t nearly as haunted. His face still bright and smooth, no years of abuse or ice to pull at the corners of his mouth, to press an almost permanent furrow in his brow. Bucky swayed a little more as his eyes darted across Steve’s face, taking everything in. Steve kept his stance open and easy. 

“Yeah…” The brunet trailed off as he leaned backward, taking in all of Steve. Steve prayed that Bucky wouldn’t consider it unusual for Steve to be out of uniform at the moment. 

“Need some help gettin’ back?” Steve offered hopefully. He felt drawn to this Bucky the same way he always had been. The Bucky who said goodbye near that platform didn’t exude the same easy charm. It had been beaten out of him. This Bucky could enchant any girl he set his sights on. 

The brunet blinked a few times. “M’sure you’ve got better things to do than worry about some poor drunk SOB.” 

“Gotta make sure my NCO is ready bright and early. What kind of Captain would I be otherwise?” Bucky’s mouth curled in a sardonic smile. 

“Fine then. I’ll take an escort, gotta keep to curfew, right? Have me home by 9 or the neighbors will gossip. Bring shame to my family.” He strolled up to Steve to give him a gentle shove. Steve smiled. 

“Can’t have that.” He walked with Bucky out into the street and they start down the familiar way back to their quarters. Instead of regular army barracks, Steve, Bucky, and the others had been given rooms in the SSR building. He remembered marveling at their size with Bucky the first time Phillips’s secretary had lead them down the hallway. Of course, more often than not barely any of them actually slept in their rooms, either out chasing skirts or simply too lazy to make their way back. Sometimes they all just slept in the same room, so used to the sound of each other snoring that it felt too quiet otherwise. 

He and Bucky made their way in, getting barely a nod from the clerk sitting behind the desk. Bucky had used seniority to gain the last room at the end of the hall, two of his walls making up the corner of the building. Steve’s room was on a different floor, since he was an officer. The distinct feeling of deja vu hung over him as he followed Bucky down the hall. The other man seemed to trip over his own feet and Steve reached out and grabbed his arm. 

“Whoa, easy there. How much did you have to drink, Buck?” The other man fumbled with his door knob. 

“Guess more than I thought.” He mumbled as Steve opened the door and lead the other man in. Bucky pushed off him and put a steadying hand on the nightstand. “M’fine now, Steve.” 

“You sure?”

“Don’ gotta baby me, Stevie.” Bucky’s hand was in the nightstand drawer, rummaging around. He was probably going for a painkiller, so Steve eased the door closed, grabbing an empty canteen from Bucky’s shelf and filling it up from the tap in the bathroom. He turned around and held his hand out to Bucky’s back. 

“Here’s some wat-” Faster than he could blink Bucky had shoved him against the wall, the canteen falling from his hands as he raised them up, palms forward. Bucky had a knife to his throat, pressed in tight enough that when Steve gulped he could feel the blade slice into his skin. 

“Bucky?” He kept his voice as even as he could. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Bucky snarled, his eyes clear and piercing. Steve blinked back at him. 

“I’m Steve Rog-”

“Bullshit you are! First; I left Steven Grant Rogers back at that bar mooning over Agent Carter.” Bucky’s right hand snapped out to grab Steve’s left wrist. “Second; what the fuck is this?” Before Steve could stop him, Bucky had pulled off the control for the quantum realm. 

Steve growled and grabbed for the device, only to be slammed against the wall again, feeling blood trickle down his throat. How was his friend so strong? It couldn’t be the serum, Bucky hadn’t exhibited any signs of the serum working that Steve could remember during the war.

“I’m gonna ask one more time, who the fuck are you?”

“It’s me, Buck. I swear.” Bucky’s eyes glanced away from him briefly, turning the quantum device over in his hands. 

“Wrong answer.” He shoved the device into his pocket and then plucked a second knife out, bringing the blade down to Steve’s side. His hand twitched and Steve panicked. 

“No, really Bucky, it’s me! Remember that summer when we were playin stick ball and I threw the ball right through old man Haggerty’s window? When he came out you took the blame. Your pa boxed your ears and made you do the old man’s chores until school started again in the fall. I’d already missed three months cause of the pneumonia and you didn’t want my ma to keep me at home as punishment.”

Bucky met his eyes, his gaze cold and unfeeling. It reminded Steve of how the Winter Soldier had stared at him during their fight. Steve lowered his guard, dropping his hands. 

“It’s me, Buck. Comeon, you know me.” Grey eyes searched his. But Bucky didn’t lower his knives. Steve thought about tackling Bucky and grabbing the device, but he couldn’t risk a tussle or Bucky alerting anyone else of Steve’s presence here. “Ok. You got me.” He’d have to give a little, hopefully gain Bucky’s trust. And once he had the device back he’d have to figure out how to stop this from having happened. “I’m Steve, but I’m not from this time.”

This time the response was a flat glare, but Bucky moved the second knife from its proximity to Steve’s liver. With a quick hand moment he had flipped the knife so that the blade sat parallel to his forearm. 

“You tryin’ to tell me this lil’ thing in my pocket is a time machine?” Bucky raised one eyebrow at him. 

“Yes.” Steve didn’t know what else to do, first the Red Skull and now this? He was still so tired. 

Bucky’s eyes darted back and forth, searching Steve’s face for any trace of falsehood. He seemed to find none, stepping back from the blond, his knives still clutched in his hands. 

“What the hell are you doing here, then?” 

Steve shrugged. “I messed up.” This startled a huff out of Bucky. 

“Where were you aiming for?” Steve bit his lip as he mulled over his answer. 

“1949, DC.” Bucky whistled. 

“That where you came from?” 

“Not exactly.” He made a step towards Bucky, who immediately brought up his knives. Steve backed away again, keeping his stance benign. “I came from, a lot further in the future.”

“Why DC in 5 years then?” Bucky’s question came out as more of a challenge. 

“Because I wanted to get a life.” Bucky glared at him and Steve sighed. “I just watched two of my friends die because I failed them, again. I’m tired of it, Buck. Tired of the fight, tired of watching the people I care about get taken by all these...” He let his shoulders drop, bearing the weight of his guilt like chains. “I just wanted to have an easy life, so I figured I’d come back and get the girl and the white picket fence. Put down the shield for a while.” He looked at Bucky, whose brow was furrowed as he stared at Steve. 

“You’re giving up?” The accusation stung. Steve glared at Bucky. “You’re just gonna lay down and what? Have a 9 to 5 job, lil missus back home making dinner for you and the kids? Who’s the missus?” He blinked and his jaw dropped in incredulity. “Carter?” Steve clenched his jaw. 

“Yeah, Buck. I think I deserve it. Deserve to retire and get a family.” The brunet pursed his lips. 

“So you didn’t have that, before?” Steve growled. “No family? Nothing?”

“No one that I could protect properly! Not being Captain fucking America.” His frustration crested and slammed down on him, suddenly. “I have watched them suffer again and again because we just had to keep fighting! Or we were on the run. I just want a normal family, wife and kids. People who aren’t in danger because they know me! I want to be normal and have a normal family! Is that such a crime?!” His voice had risen in his anger until he was practically spitting at Bucky. He heaved in a breath as he watched the brunet take it all in. Watched his shoulders slump. 

“What happened, Steve? What broke you?” He stepped toward Steve, lowering his knives, his eyes full of worry. Steve spat out a laugh. 

“What didn’t?! I watched you fall and then I put the plane in the water. I didn’t ask to be woken up 70 years later! I didn’t ask to get back under the cowl, to have a new team and no one else around that I knew! The only thing I could cling to was SHIELD, what Howard and Peg and Phillips built.” He chuckled darkly. “Only that was a lie too! It was all Hydra! Project Insight and you! Trying to bring it all down and keep the Earth safe! But the Accords and Tony, we weren’t a team when He came. When Thanos came. And then I had to watch you die again, lose Sam, and Wanda. T’Challa and Shuri? Half the world’s population! Gone in an instant. All because we failed. Because I failed. We tried to fix it, god we tried! But to fix it we lost Nat and Tony. I can’t...I can’t watch the people around me die like that anymore. I can’t, Bucky.” Steve realized there was wetness on his cheeks and he scrubbed at them with the back of his hand. 

“So I took on the last mission, return things to their rightful place. And then I’m gonna get my dance, keep that promise and BE normal.” He glared at Bucky. “I think I deserve that. Deserve to have even a little of what Tony got, what Nat wanted.”

The brunet met his eyes and Steve could see Bucky resolve to ask a question, and then dismiss it again several dozen times. 

“You all...fixed it? Fixed the half the population thing?” 

“Yes, everyone who disappeared in the Decimation came back. We did that.” Bucky nodded and chewed at his cheek. 

“Sam...and Wanda? Your teammates?”

“Came back. They’re alive again.” That at least made Steve smile thinly. 

“Sounds like you cared a lot about them. And this Tony and Nat too.” Steve blinked. 

“Yeah...we. Nat was there for me every time I needed someone. I knew her for, god, 11 years.” He felt something twist in his chest. “We only had each other, those 5 years. Keeping each other sane while we prayed for a way to fix it. Tony was...god he was such a pain in the ass. He had a little girl, she’s beautiful, and just like him.” 

“Sounds more like they were friends; family.” Steve’s head snapped up, his chest tight again. 

“And what good did it do them? Nothing! They’re dead.” Bucky just nodded thoughtfully. Steve let out a long breath. “I’m so tired, Buck.” 

“Sounds like it.” Bucky agreed quietly, obviously still mulling things over. “But have you actually thought this through?” Steve glared. “No, have you?” 

Steve frowned. “Of course I have. When Tony and I, when we went to SHIELD and I saw her desk, I knew.” 

“Knew what?”

“That it would work.”

“Why?” Steve gave Bucky a thin smile. 

“Because she still cared, Buck. It was 1970 and she still had a picture of me on her desk.” Bucky’s lips pursed. 

“Her desk? Thirty years later?”

“Yeah, me from before Rebirth. At bootcamp. Right there.”

“That it?”

“What?”

“That’s all that was on her desk?”

Steve ran back over his memory. “Yeah.”

Bucky raised an eyebrow at him. “And you don’t find that...odd? No family photos? Accomplishments? You said she founded something?”

“SHIELD, out of the SSR with Howard and Phillips. She was the director for years.” Bucky nodded. 

“So she co-founds this...agency and runs it, and all that’s on her desk is you? No medals or commendations? Nothing of her brother?” 

“What are you trying to get at, Bucky?” Steve felt his ire rising, like a cat being backed into a corner. 

“I’m trying to understand your decision, Steve. Figure out how it all falls into place. When you, when you wound up 70 years in the future, you said everyone was dead. Including her?”

“No, she was still alive. She was in a home for the elderly, her memory wasn’t so good. But I visited her.” Steve remembered how regal she had still looked, steel grip despite how fragile she seemed. “Talked about her kids, SHIELD...whenever she remembered obviously.”

“Kids?”

“Yeah, and grandkids. And a niece.” He hoped Bucky didn’t notice the slight hesitation over that word. “She was very proud.”

Bucky looked at him imploringly. “Steve, are you actually listening to yourself? Does any of that add up?”

Steve jutted out his jaw. “Not like you’d know, I’ve never even seen the two of you exchange words. Why are you acting like you know anything about her?” He challenged the brunet, his nostrils flaring. 

Bucky rolled his eyes in response. “Because she’s like you, ya mook. Why do y’think you like her so much?” He relaxed his pose and tossed the knife in his right hand. It spun end over blade until he caught it again, twirling it around his fingers. “Also kinda sounds like she had a life, pal.”

Steve blinked away the way Bucky-no, the Winter Soldier had twirled and swapped knives so easily in their fight on the highway. “And?”

“So were you her husband?”

“No, I wasn’t around.”

Bucky gave him another one of his patented looks. 

“That’s not how it works.” Steve countered.

“Time travel?”

“Yeah. It’s not a loop it’s more of...a tree. You create new branches when you go back. The past becomes your future.” 

“So you’re just leaving and not planning on going back?”

“Well if you gave me back the machine, I can.” 

“But you aren’t going to, are you? You’re just leaving your team behind.” Bucky looked at him solemnly. 

“No. I’m-I’ll go back...eventually.” 

This time Bucky pointed at him, hand still clutching a knife. “You’re abandoning them.”

“No-”

“Yes, you are!” Bucky stepped towards him this time, still pointing. “You’re abandoning them to go create this whole new life! White picket fence and the kids, meanwhile your team is still recovering? Did you at least tell them?”

Steve bit his lip but refused to be mollified. “I didn’t.”

Bucky let out a startled laugh. “So they think you’re on a mission and instead you’re disappearing and you might go back, when? When you’re old and wrinkled? Really?”

Steve stared challengingly at the other man. 

“Jesus Christ, Steve! Why didn’t you tell them?” Bucky threw his hands out as he stepped closer. “Why? Would they have stopped you?”

Steve refused to answer, but Bucky must have seen something on his face. 

“They would, wouldn’t they? They would’ve stopped you so you just went on ahead with your plan, damned be everyone else?” 

“You knew! I could tell, but you still let me go!” Steve blurted and then paled. 

Bucky fixed him with an icy look. “Oh, did you forget you told me I was alive too? Not quite sure how, but I have guesses.” Steve bristled. “So this other me, future me, I got kids? A family?” 

“No...you… hadn’t had a chance yet. It’s complicated, Bucky.” 

“All I’m hearing is that supposedly I’ve died twice in front of you...and now you’re leaving me behind without any plans of coming back.” 

“It’s not like that, Bucky! I’ll make sure none of the bad stuff happens in the new timeline! I’ll save you, I promise.” 

“‘Cept that’s not quite true, is it? You’ll be saving a different me. Not that other one, the one you left behind; but not me here, either.” Steve looked at him, puzzled. 

“New branch, right? Am I supposed to thank you, for rescuing that me? What about the guy you left behind somewhere in the future? He supposed to thank you?” Bucky moved closer. 

Steve opened his mouth but Bucky rushed forward to crash his hand into Steve’s chest. “No! You don’t get to answer that. It was gonna be bullshit.” His glare turned icy again. “You’re giving up on a whole world of people who care about you.” Steve shoved against Bucky’s hand. 

“They’ll be ok.” Bucky’s fist forced him back against the wall again. 

“How do you know?”

“Because…”

“Because what? You don’t! You have no idea!”

Steve snapped. “They’ve been saved and we destroyed the bad guy and returned the stones. They have each other. They’ll be ok.” 

“But you. Don’t. Know. That.” The brunet punctuated every word with a jab of his finger to Steve’s sternum. “You have assumptions and maybe you’re right. You know everyone better than I do but what if you’re wrong? What if you’re leaving them to something worse?”

“They’re perfectly capable, Buck.” Steve tried to placate. “And Sam can lead them. He’s been watching my back for a while now. Almost as good as you.” He used his hands to gently nudge Bucky’s, still clutching his knives. “I trust him.” 

Bucky allowed his hands to be moved, but continued to glare at Steve. “So why not retire there? Is the future really so bad? Is there really no one there?”

“No.” 

Bucky looked at Steve and his smile turned thin and cold. “No other gals?”

“No one who loves me like Peg does.” Steve replied. 

“No one.” Bucky’s smile turned flat. 

“No. There might have been, could have been maybe, but...I let that slip through my fingers too.” Steve shook his head. Bucky was still regarding him with his flat expression. 

“‘No one who loves me like Peg does?’ Seriously, Steve? You’re gonna give me that line? If you’re traveling to 1949, that means you knew her like this for what, 3 years? At most? And she’s the ONLY one who’s loved you?” Bucky’s mocking tone sent ice through Steve’s veins. 

“Just because I didn’t have the same way with women you did doesn’t mean I don’t know what love is, Bucky. Doesn’t mean I don't know who to hold onto.”

"I thought you'dve gotten smarter, Steve." He sighed like Steve was an errant kid. Steve growled. 

"I had a lot of time to think, Buck. In those 5 years I did a lot of thinking." 

Something in his tone caused Bucky's face to twist. "Sounds like you spent a lot of time dwelling." 

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean you had time to conjure up a pretty little picture, and I'm sure it's pretty… but nothing is ever like the picture shows, Steve. You know that." 

Steve bristled. This was taking too much time. His hand shot out, knocking the knife from Bucky's grip as he spun their bodies, attempting to knock the brunet out at his knees. As Bucky fell Steve lashed out again, hoping to knock the other knife to the floor. Suddenly an elbow connected to his chin as two arms wrapped around his waist as Bucky tackled him. He heard the sound of the other knife clattering across the floorboards as Bucky pinned Steve, hands clutching his wrists and his knees on either side of his hips. 

"Dwelling means you spent your time drafting up a make believe world that you think you can be real if you just fix all the mistakes that were made. Means you stopped trying to live in the world you had. Well guess what? You'll just make different mistakes! Different things will go wrong because no plan is fullproof and you fuckin’ know that!"

"Shut up!" Steve spat as he tried to roll, to break out of Bucky's grip. But the other man held him fast, twisting his body so that he remained balanced atop Steve. His eyes blazing. 

“No, this is something you need to hear, Steven Grant. You’re leaving everyone you know behind to pursue some sort of fairy tale. But you know how those deals work, Steve. It’s a monkey’s paw is what it is.” Bucky held Steve’s gaze, looking imploringly. 

“Not if I already know-”

“But when you change things, there will be new unknowns! You don’t know everything and you never have! It’s a gamble.”

Steve bared his teeth. “Seems worth it.” Bucky sagged a little but kept his grip firm. 

“Right, cause she’s the one and only person who’s ever loved you right.” 

“You say that like it’s not the truth Bucky, but you’ve seen how I did with other women! Before the serum they couldn’t stand me and now everyone just sees....Captain America. She’s seen both. She cares about both. _Loves_ both.” 

“So do I.” 

Steve felt as if the world had stopped turning on its axis. “What?” He stared up at Bucky, feeling something strange in his chest, a fizzle. 

Bucky closed his eyes and sighed. “So do I.” His head dropped so that the ends of his hair swept against Steve’s chest, and mumbled. “Guess it’s not ‘right’ but it’s the best I could do. Only thing I’ve known how to do properly, it feels like.” He raised his head and his steel gaze capture Steve’s. “So before you head to your perfect life with kids and a dog in a brownstone, she’s not the only one.” He leant back, shifting his weight to his haunches. 

Steve felt a cracking in his chest, the weight and the cold that had lingered under his skin was shifting. A tiny part in the very back of his heart, one that he had shoved so deep he had rarely even contemplated on it, was piercing through the sheet of ice wrapped around his body. The part that had sparked when he was 15 and used to flush as he would watch Bucky strip off his clothes after a long day at the docks and lay down on their floor. Body glistening with sweat and his hair slicked back. That part in his heart that he had thought he’d snuffed out long ago was roaring back to life with such a force that he felt air punched from his lungs. His hand moved before he could think, wrapping itself tightly around Bucky’s left wrist. 

“Steve-” Bucky looked at him but Steve was too caught up in the wildfire drowning his chest in heat. He had been so numb, so tired for such a long time now that his heart had clutched at the first chance it saw to happiness, to escape the gray lifeless world that had surrounded him for 5 long years. He was ablaze, he was drenched and it all hit like a supernova to his senses. He wanted. For the first time in a long time he wanted. Not the distant soreness of an old injury but the absolute ache of emptiness. It was devouring him. 

His hand shot out and pulled Bucky’s face to his in a brutal hungry kiss. Their lips meeting with such force that he could feel the brunet’s lip split, could taste his blood. Bucky gasped and Steve took the opportunity to lick into the other man’s mouth. Despite a moment’s hesitation, Bucky began kissing back with fervor to match Steve’s. Steve’s hands sought out skin and he could feel the brunet moving in kind against him. Steve wasn’t sure how much time was lost. He didn’t care. 

Suddenly, Bucky shoved him away violently; his shoulders crashing to the floor and the back of his skull ringing. “Fuck you, Rogers.” He growled, turning his head to face away from Steve but not fast enough to hide the glistening in his eyes. Steve felt his heart seize. 

“Buck, that’s not--” Steve attempted to reach up for the other man’s chin but his wrist was held down tight. He tried in vain to catch Bucky’s eyes. “Please. I’m sorry! You have no idea how much I’ve wanted--”

“Shut up! You have no fuckin’ idea what you want.” Bucky finally levelled Steve with a glare that was more sad than angry. “You think you’re gonna find what you want in another life, another place. You gave up on what you had and I’m sure as hell ain’t gonna be a replacement. You’re searching for a prize, the holy grail, the treasure at the end of your quest.” Bucky shook his head. “I ain’t that. Not sure Carter should be that either.” He let go of Steve’s wrists and leaned back, flowing up from his knees to his feet in an easy catlike motion. He grabbed Steve’s right wrist and hauled him up, slapping back on the quantum gps. “But that’s not up to me.” 

Steve stood still, unsure how to respond as Bucky straightened his collar, brushed his hair gently away from his forehead. The brunet stepped back, pulling up Steve’s wrist and typing in a date, tilting it to Steve for confirmation to which he nodded without a second thought. He gripped Steve’s wrist tighter and forced the blond to meet his eyes. 

“When you go to her...when she...well. If things go south, tell her that I told you about her Gran’s yellow mums.” 

Steve frowned. “What?”

“You heard me. Now push the fucking button.”

Steve tried to step forward, to touch Bucky, but the other man deftly maneuvered around him like a dance partner. “Bucky wait…” 

“I don’t want you in this timeline, Steve. I don’t care where you go from here, but you have to go. Go get your family and your happy ending.” The other man gave him the same smile the other Bucky in his world had given him. A smile Steve had failed every time he’d seen it to understand what it meant, until now. 

“I wish…” He began, unsure how to express the typhoon of emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. 

“Push the button, Rogers.” So Steve did. 

  
  
  
  


He spiraled once again through the quantum realm, and good lord was he sick of this. His mind felt like the swirling colors of the tunnels he navigated. Bucky’s words echoed over and over in his head as he finally touched down on a sidewalk. His suit melting away into his GPS and he smoothed his hair with uncertainty. Across the street was the address he had memorized from Peg’s files. He stared at the front door, breathing in deeply. He had replayed this moment over and over in his head even before it had become a possibility. He would knock on the door, Peggy would open it, he’d say _“I’m sorry I’m late, but can I have this dance?”_ How she would smile bright and wide at him and they’d go from there. 

But now Bucky’s voice was in his head, his doubts casting a deep shadow over the scenes in Steve’s mind. The idea of what he wanted, what he had honed to perfection throughout the years and especially after his trip with Tony, was now shifting and cracking. Other notions were pushing through. The feeling of lips against his, hard and brutal with the tang of copper. He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. He was on a mission. He was going to complete this mission. This mission was going to-had to succeed. He had bet everything on this. 

He stood tall and walked across the street, bringing his hand up to wrap twice on the door. He heard the click of Peggy’s heels on the floor as she came closer. The pause as she must have taken him in through the peephole, before finally the door opened inward as Peggy stepped into the doorway. 

“Hey Peg.” He breathed as he stared at her face, still as beautiful as the day they had met. “I’m sorry I’m late, but can I have this dance?” He smiled. 

She regarded him for a moment, taking him in, her mouth dropping open before snapping shut and looking him right in the eye. “Steven Grant Rogers? How?” A slow smile spread across her lips. 

“It’s a long story, mind if I come in?” His shoulders eased at her happy response. 

“Oh, of course.” She stepped back and motioned him in. He walked into the house, admiring the homey atmosphere and the slight hint of her perfume as he heard the door shut.

“Wow Peg, this place is great…” He turned around, smiling wide only to come face to face with the business end of a pistol, Peggy standing cooly as she pointed it directly between his eyes. “...Peggy?” 

“You have one chance to tell me who the hell you are before I put a bullet in your brain and have to find somewhere to dump the body.” Steve instinctively held his hands up, palms outward. He felt a sense of _déjà vu_. 

“It’s me, Peg. Steve Rogers. Put the Valkyrie down in the ice after I had a fight with Schmidt?” 

“Very good, you’ve repeated all the information any school child knows by now. Because I am feeling exceedingly nice, I will not count that as your one chance.” Her voice was cold steel as her brown eyes never left his face. 

“You told me I was meant for so much better than being a dancing monkey. The kiss before the Valkyrie…” She sighed. 

“If you’re Leviathan then you have some pretty good intel but unfortunately you’ve failed in numerous ways to actually capture Steve Rogers. I hope in the future they don’t bother sending more of you.” He watched her finger tighten on the trigger. 

“Wait-WAIT!” He had botched this somehow, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. How could he fix this? A voice echoed in his ear _“When you go to her...when she...well. If things go south…”_

“Bucky told me about your Gran’s yellow mums.”Her finger stopped moving instantly, her mouth dropping in what he recognized now as true surprise. She blinked a few times before recovering. 

“Repeat that.”

“Bucky told me about your Gran’s yellow mums.” He sighed, realizing again how right his friend had been. How Steve had failed to take things into account. Peggy dropped her arm holding the gun, her other hand coming up to cover her mouth as she stared at Steve. 

“Steve?” Her voice quavered. “Oh sweetheart what happened to you?” She dropped her gun onto the table next to the door and held up her hand to Steve’s face. 

“What do you mean?” He felt off kilter, taken aback at her question. Her red nails came up and traced the faint wrinkles between his brows and around his eyes. She ran a hand through his hair, rubbing a few strands between her fingers. 

“You’re not the Steve Rogers I kissed in that car. You’re not the man I spoke to on that radio.” She looked at him sadly. “You sound different. More rundown.” She traced her fingertips over his cheekbones and up under his eyes. “And you look decades older. I don’t know how you came here, but I know that you’re not the Steve Rogers I said goodbye to those few years ago.”

For some reason, he felt as if he were shattering. This was not how he had pictured, this wasn’t how any of this was supposed to happen. He had an excuse for the change in his hair and clothing, but against this level of scrutiny he was bereft. 

“I came a long way.” He breathed. She smiled at him gently. 

“It seems so.” She pulled him close and he bent down, inhaling her perfume and the faint hint of gun oil. His arms wrapped around her body, seeming so fragile yet he knew was made of steel. He wanted to think that it felt like home. She drew back finally, looking him in the face. “So why did you come here?” 

He wanted it to feel like home. “Well, that dance?” She smirked at him. 

“Right to the chase, I suppose. Well I’ll put on a record then.” She turned and made her way into the living room, knowing he would follow her. “Any preference?” She called over her shoulder. 

“No.” He called, distracted by the amount of photographs and other personal items that occupied the space. “Well, I suppose something slow. I still haven’t learned to dance.” He paused at a picture of a family, the young man’s arm thrown over his little sister’s shoulder. The arch of the brow and quirk of the lips so familiar. And then the song began to play. 

Steve felt his heart stutter in his chest as the notes began to play and Peggy was reaching out for him, arm up and ready to wrap around his neck. He stepped into the embrace and followed her movements to the tempo. Inside, his stomach twisted unpleasantly. The last time he had listened to this song Fury had been standing in his apartment before gunshots blasted through the wall and…

He turned his thoughts from that and tried to be present in the moment, pulling her closer and resting his head against hers. He could do this. It could be this easy. He’d just have to wait out some things, he had to do something about McCarthy, obviously. Do his part in the Civil Rights Movement, protect Dr. King and President Kennedy. He’d have to find Bucky and free him, and then there were the wars...He blinked his eyes at the amount he’d actually have to do. All the rights he’d have to wrong. Things he’d promised himself he’d fix. Except he’d also wanted just the white picket fence and the kids. He wouldn’t keep Peggy from founding SHIELD, couldn’t hold her back when he knew everything she’d accomplish. 

Suddenly all of Steve’s carefully laid plans turned to dust in his own mind. If he wanted a simple life, he’d have to commit to inaction, to let events play out as he knew they would if he wanted children and the time to spend with them. If he wanted to fix this world, stop everything he knew would happen, how would he actually have time for everything? When he’d dreamed of it, all those years, there had been time for everything, time to save Bucky and stop Reagan, time to enjoy marriage to Peggy, to live in their own little world with children. Except how could that be? After seeing those around him he knew how vital time and effort were in maintaining a relationship, after a late night with Clint he understood how time consuming children could be. How hard it was to leave them behind every time he went on a mission. And yet, if he chose that, he doomed so many. And he left Bucky to suffer. Left Tony to deal with the grief of unanswered questions as an orphan. Left Sam to watch his partner fall from the sky. Left Wanda and her brother to watch their parents die, then for Wanda to watch both Pietro and Vision die in front of her. 

He’d been so stupid. So bullheaded. He blinked back the tears that formed at the corners of his eyes. Bucky had been right. All of Steve’s plans were useless, a fantasy drawn up by a man consumed with grief and focused on the past, not the present or the future. Peggy pulled back and turned off the record player. Then returned to gingerly wiped his tears away. 

“Oh, dear. Tell me Steve, why did you come here?” She asked gently, looking him over with her brown eyes soft and kind. He blinked at her. 

“I-I don’t think I know, Peg. I thought I did but now it’s all…” 

“All real, instead of drawn out nicely on a map or sketched out on paper?” He jerked his head at her words. “Oh Steve, you make wonderful plans, darling. Amazing. And when you need to readjust you do just fine at that too. But you’re so focused on the goal, the task; you never seem to actually know what to do after that.” She smiled. “It’s part of what I love about you, that determination and fire. But it also made me pull my hair out trying to clean up after the mess you made. You came here on a mission, but do you have any actual idea how to deal with the aftermath?” He could only gape at her. She laughed. 

“You’ve never had to clean up your messes, have you? You’ve always had James, and then the SSR, and I assume other people where you come from.” She searched his eyes. “Or maybe you did come across a mess you could only clean up, not fix. And it tore you to pieces?” He flinched and pulled away from her, out of her arms. The truth in her words cutting right to his heart, echoing words he’d recently heard. 

“No wonder you look older, darling. You’ve borne the weight of some terrible consequence on your shoulders with no one to help.”

“Not no one.” He replied, defensively. Thinking of a worn smile, a husky laugh, and several peanut butter sandwiches. But that was all gone now, too. “I had...I had someone.”

She looked at him knowingly. “But you don’t have them now. And you got a bit lost?” 

And that was the truth wasn’t it? “Yeah, Peg. I just needed some guidance from my true north.” 

“You never really needed me like that Steve. All I ever did was believe in you, and you’ve had that your whole life.” He wanted to protest but she shushed him with a finger to his lips. “But if you want to hear what I have to say now, it’s this: You already know the answer. You already know where you’re supposed to be and what you’re supposed to be doing. You let yourself get a little lost but now it’s time to go home. And you know where home is.” 

He wanted to say home was here, in her arms, with her, his soulmate, always. But he couldn’t. Because now that he was here, in her arms, with her, he still didn’t feel like he was home. Home felt like...a booming voice and lightning, a man who had finally come to terms with both halves of himself, a young voice wrapped in red and blue doing his best, a princess with a mischievous smile and an unfathomable intelligence, a lilting voice with the barest hint of an accent cooking, a firm hand on his shoulder and a voice constantly reminding him “on your left”, and ice blue eyes that sparked with such warmth when they met his. He smiled wanly. 

“You’re right, Peg. I do.” She smiled in reply. 

“Well don’t let me keep you. I have a suspicion we’ll meet again.” He pulled her into a hug, hoping that if he didn’t tell her anything else, it wouldn’t change whatever flow this timeline would follow. She wrapped her arms tightly around him and he tipped her face up to look at him and captured her lips the way he had always wanted to. It felt like a book closing, the end of a movie reel, the final embers of a fire dying out. They pulled apart easily. 

“Thank you, Peggy.” 

“Anytime, Steve.” She stepped back and he made his way back to her door. “I’m sorry you can’t stay for tea.”

“Next time.” He smiled at her as he opened the door. 

“I’ll hold you to that.” She warned, taking the handle from him as he turned to face her. 

“I’m counting on it.” He replied and reached out to gently squeeze her hand once more. Then he turned around, walked down her porch, and then turned down the street. He waited until he heard her door shut, then slipped quietly between two houses and pulled out his GPS. He stared at the return button for a second before breathing in deeply and pressing it, sending him once again to the Quantum Realm.

  
  
  


He returned to a startled gasp, and turned his head to face Bruce, who stared at him as if he were a ghost. “Bruce?”

The other man just blinked, looking between Steve and something over his shoulder. He turned to see Bucky, a few feet away, half turned towards him with confusion written all over his face. And further in the distance, Sam talking with an old man while clutching a familiar looking object. He blinked a few times and looked to Bucky for understanding. 

But Bucky’s eyes held no answer as they flitted between the old man and him, sorting out a puzzle. In the background, Steve watched the old man rise, helped to his feet by Sam, who was also now glancing in his direction. 

“Finally! Took your sweet time didn’t you?” Came the craggly voice from the old man. His timbre resonating with Steve as he examined the wrinkled face better. It looked familiar, this old face. Steve pulled at a fuzzy memory of his childhood, his mother showing him pictures and pointing out her father. 

As the old man approached Steve, Sam stopped to linger next to Bucky, shield still in his hands. The old man’s hands moved in familiar motions. “No need to worry, I have my own way home.” He spoke loudly enough for all of them to hear, even as Bruce was staring at his machine. Finally, the man stopped in front of Steve and rapped his knuckles against the white and red suit. “Tch. Exactly what Tony Stark would create from Hank Pym’s designs. Thank goodness we have Hope and Shuri.” He met Steve’s eyes and finally, understanding dawned. But how? How had a him from another universe traveled here? Well, obviously through the Quantum Realm but why here? Why now? Why give Sam the shield? His own eyes, marked by age, looked him over. 

“Looks like you made the right choice after all. I told Buck to have faith.” The old man patted him on the shoulder and shuffled his way to the launch pad. “Welcome home, Steve.” He called over his shoulder as he reached the pad. He stepped on, holding up his left wrist and twisted the head on his watch. He disappeared in a flurry of multicolored particles. 

“That looks much nicer on the stomach.” Bruce mumbled as he switched off the pad, glancing between the empty space where Steve’s older self had stood and Steve himself. 

“Does this mean I have to give this back?” Sam asked, drawing Steve’s attention around to where he stood with Bucky, holding the shield up hesitantly. The question struck Steve as odd. His shield had been broken during the battle with Thanos, and after the battle his mind had been so focused on getting back to Peggy it just wasn’t in him to care about the mantle of Captain America. But here, now, he was presented with an opportunity that had never occurred to him. 

“No.” Came out of his mouth before he could stop himself. “No, you’ve earned that, Sam. I’m old news, ‘vintage’, and I think the world needs someone with a more modern perspective.” 

Sam blinked at him. “But you’re a supersoldier.”

“You have wings.” Steve countered. “Plus it’s really just calculating angles. It comes with practice.”

“You’re sure?” Sam pressed. “Just because some old version of you gave me this doesn’t mean you have to give it up.” Bucky was still staring at Steve as if he was an anomaly. 

“Yeah well, I think that old me knows a whole lot more than this me. I think it’s time to pass on the mantle, try to have more of a life-work balance.”

Sam raised his eyebrow. “Life?” 

“Yeah, I was told I ought to get one. Think I’d like to follow up on that.”

“By going back to Carter.” Interrupted Bucky’s voice, his eyes piercing Steve’s. He once would have overlooked the tiny edge to that statement, the hint of bitterness and finality. But Steve supposed going back to the past had done one thing, it had opened his eyes to all the ways he had misread Bucky throughout the years. He relaxed his shoulders, dropping his position to easy and open. 

“That was my first thought, yeah. But turns out I just got a little lost as to where home was.”

Bucky frowned. “You seemed pretty certain, earlier.”

Steve could see Sam frowning as he listened to their conversation and remembered how he had kept it from the other man. He felt ashamed. 

“Yeah well, I had a plan, but I was informed by two very smart people that it wasn’t a good one. They showed me how I was wrong. I’m sorry that I was going to leave and not say anything.” He glanced to Sam and then Bruce. “I thought you would have tried to stop me so I was just going to go. It was incredibly selfish.” Sam snorted in disbelief and Bruce grimaced. 

“So Carter rejected you?” Bucky glared at Steve. 

“Uh, actually she pointed a gun at me and gave me one chance to prove I was Steve Rogers.” 

Bucky’s mouth twisted in grim amusement. “So she sent you packing?”

“Actually, I only managed to not get shot because I’d already had my plan blown to smithereens. I just needed it reinforced.” Steve turned to face Bucky in full now. “I just had to tell her that I knew about her Gran’s yellow mums.” 

Bucky stared at him for a long second then blinked slowly. “Your plans always did need a few fixes.” 

“They did. And I always had someone by my side reminding me of the details I overlooked.” Steve smiled. 

Bucky raised an eyebrow. “And now?” 

“I still need that guidance. Just maybe not for battle?” He refused to disguise the hope in his voice. Bucky blinked a few times, emotions flashing across his face faster than Steve could comprehend and Steve moved a step closer. His eyes never left Bucky’s. “I mean, herding goats looked like a challenge.”

He watched Bucky’s face relax, the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, relishing it. How could he have wanted to give up this? Watching all the small ways Bucky had pulled himself together after Hydra had crushed him, tried to erase him. The strength and beauty of what his friend had accomplished took his breath away. 

“You know, I think you’d get along great with them. They remind me of you every time they use their actual head instead of their brain.” Bucky tilted his head as Steve stepped closer. 

“So I’m supposed to be Captain America and you’re gonna go herd goats in Wakanda?” Sam’s voice piped up and caused Steve to glance over, his body angled toward Bucky even as his head turned. 

“I’m available for consultation.” Steve replied and he saw Sam smile brightly at that. “But, I’ve wasted enough time not actually doing what I want. I’d like to focus on that now.” He reached his hand out, allowing Bucky to reach out to him and close the gap by taking his hand. Steve allowed himself another leap of faith and pulled the brunet closer, telegraphing his every move as he reached up and cupped Bucky’s cheek. He leaned forward and brushed their lips together. It was unlike any other kiss he’d had, a gentle question, a hopeful beginning. He pulled back to see Bucky’s face flushed, a big smile breaking like the dawn. “What do you think?” His eyes met clear blue. 

“I think it sounds like a good plan.”


End file.
